Microsoft Publish Media Streaming Known Issues Help for WHS 2011 and WSS Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials

Microsoft have today published a new article detailing known issues with media streaming on Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials.

Media streaming known issue with Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials

“Repeat” button does not function for single file streaming from Remote Web Access Page

Symptom:

While playing single music/video on RWA page, you will find that the repeat function does not work.

Consider following steps:

1. Log on to RWA page, navigate to Media Library;
2. Click Browse Music;
3. Click a music file;
4. Turn repeat on for the single music file;
5. The music finished playing, however, does not repeat.

Root Cause:

The single music/video repeat function was not successfully enabled on the RWA page. This will only happen if you have single file in the playlist.

Solution:

You can add at least one more music file to the playlist.

The repeat function will work when you have multiple files in the playlist.

The media file will still be displayed in the media player, after they have been moved to a new folder

Symptom:

After moving video/photos/music files to a different folder that is out of the default media folder, these files will still be displayed on media streaming gadget on RWA and Windows Media Player.

Consider following steps:

1. On the server, move any media files from D:\ServerFolders\Music, D:\ServerFolders\Video, or D:\ServerFolders\RecordedTV to any other folders.
2. Log on to RWA page, navigate to Media Library, or log on to the server, open Windows Media Player directly;
3. The Moved media files are still displayed on the playlist, however, when you click to play, it will not function.
4. After you have deleted these files from the new folders, they will still show up in the playlist.

Root Cause:

Indexes in Windows Media Player are not updated after the files are moved.

Solution:

1. Log on to any network computer that has access to the server shares.
2. Open the media folders (D:\ServerFolders\Music, D:\ServerFolders\Video, or D:\ServerFolders\RecordedTV) through a UNC path, for example,

\\Server\ServerFolders\Music.

1. Delete or move files to a new folder from the share. The file will be deleted and will not show up in the RWA media library anymore.

Music Album Art & Tags get overwritten

Background

To ensure imported music file can be refreshed automatically with online album art, a scheduled task will sync media metadata regularly for files on WSH music shares. However, this task will also overwrite some customized properties of the tags.

Symptom:

Consider following steps:

1. Log to Remote Access website, upload music files to the default music share, or from any network computer, copy music album files/folders to the default music share.
2. Customize the music file tags manually, or through 3-rd party tools. For example, update the album art cover pictures.
3. Wait for at least 24 hours.
4. Note online new Album Art Meta data are automatically downloaded with standard Windows Media Player attributes.
5. The original customized tag, for example, the album art cover picture, is overwritten.

Root Cause:

There is a scheduled task that will sync the media metadata (including album arts) automatically every 24 hours.

Solution:

You can follow these steps to disable the Scheduled Task:

1. On server, open Task Scheduler by clicking Start->Administrative Tools -> Task Scheduler;
2. Navigate to location \Microsoft\Windows\Windows Server;
3. Right click “Media Streaming Metadata Synchronizer” and click “Disable”.
4. If the task shows as “Running”, select “Display all running tasks” on the “Action” Pane.
5. Select “Media Streaming Metadata Synchronizer”, click “End Task”;